Mad day of travelling from Munchen to London and ‘The Witches’

The day for travelling started so well and little did we realise what lay ahead…so a 100 minute flight to London sounds pretty easy…ah no! Not today. It look 9 hours from leaving Fred’s flat to finally arriving at our hotel in Southbank, London…nice place on the Thames with a view across the river.

Getting to Munchen airport was easy and we arrived early just after 9am when we had planned to have breakfast! Nup…this was a day of no food until dinner. The airport was in chaos as someone had left their bags at the security check-in early in the morning. The airport

was then closed for an hour while the police came. The queues to get through security took nearly 3 hours and then we had to run to the plane as they were boarding. We were 3 hours getting off the train to sitting in the plane and we couldn’t get any food or drink as leaving the line was a bad decision…we would have missed the plane.

So on the plane we could have lunch as they did offer a menu to buy salads etc. Aaaahhhh no, when we asked for our selection we were laughingly told no…there was no food, we did get a deconstructed cup of tea and it was welcome. The one thing we could buy was a piece of chocolate cake and I thought we had left the cafe treats back in Munchen!!! So the flight was uneventful but interestingly everyone clapped on touch down at Heathrow…not sure why as the landing was fine. Maybe it was the gloomy weather outside or the long delay to get on the plane. Our bags took over an hour to come off the plane

even though they had moved the bag conveyors into place on our arrival as I had watched them do that. So we stood around with everyone else with no seats anywhere. We did have a smiley man welcome us through immigration when we said we had Australian passports…nice!!!

We thought we would have lunch at Heathrow…aaahhhhh no…as the lifts and the escalators were not working. Our heavy bags had to be lugged down the fire escape steps. Oh boy that was hard and there were others struggling too. So onto the Heathrow Express after about 2 hours of trying to get out of the airport. Heathrow Express is still terrific and only15 minutes to Paddington Station.

Our hotel is right on The Thames with a nice view of the river. The bed is amazingly comfy and the room large too. We had dinner after a

short walk to the National Theatre…a plate of yummy salads and then up to the Olivier Theatre to see the musical ‘The Witches’. The theatre we’d seen on our tour of the National Theatre a few weeks ago. It has a wonderful stage that projects out into the audience and the seats are great from any viewpoint. The show was scary, wonderful, funny, well acted, great singing, terrific costumes, fab music from the orchestra (who are in another area and unseen by the audience) and an amazing set. A full house with possibly a lot of scared children after the show. It was a very enjoyable experience.

Back to our room for a cuppa and we collapsed into bed after a long and at times trying day!! Great to be back in London though!